Towards Plural Values in Environmental Decision-Making: The Case of Lake Saint-Pierre's Environmental Assessment

Coastal and marine ecosystems are under increasing anthropogenic pressure. This pressure is closely related to a too narrow definition of nature’s values in decision-making processes. Assessing plural values that encompass not only economic factors, but a variety of different value dimensions, such as socio-cultural and intrinsic values, is imperative for sustainable ecosystem management. Nevertheless, the assessment and consideration of multiple values is still scarce. To promote a perspective of plural values in environmental decision-making, we aim to integrate qualitative aspects into the framework of the decision support tool Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). To this end, we assessed how the multiple values that people attribute to ecosystems change when they experience ES loss. We conducted semi-structured interviews with local stakeholders along a coastal to freshwater gradient in two case study areas along the St.-Lawrence River delta in Southern Quebec, Canada.

We orient our analysis along the conceptual framework of multiple value dimensions of the IPBES, which differentiates between intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values. This qualitative assessment of plural values is a first step towards the construction of a set of novel indicators in LCA to mainstream the ES concept in decision-making processes. Our research is embedded in the international research project Cost to Coast [C2C] that brings together social science (qualitative assessment of plural values) and natural science approaches (biophysical modeling of ES loss). Our preliminary results suggest a strong sense of place, landscape aesthetics, and environmental justice as main factors that positively influence ES values. These factors need to be emphasized in policymaking to assure an integrative management of coastal and marine areas.